Fool's Gold
by samurai frasier crane
Summary: An extra scene from "Abnormal Psychology", when Diane drags Sam to that Jean-Pierre Rampal concert.


Sam did not look back as he started up the stairs, a pace ahead of her, his neck craned to look for a cab. There were never any damn cabs when he needed one – what was that about? He stopped at the top of the steps and could feel her at his side even as his eyes remained fixed on the street: a strange sensation, the air between them heavier, making the hair on his arms rise. He jerked his head in the direction of Charles Street. "Come on."

"But Sam, don't be silly. Your car's right there."

"I told you." His gaze flickered in her direction, then quickly away. "We're taking separate cabs. I'm only going if we take separate cabs. And I said I wasn't gonna talk to you!"

"Then why are you talking to me?"

A good question! Damn her and her good questions. "We're not taking my car." Some other good questions came to mind as he spoke; they sounded in her voice even though she wasn't actually posing them. _So why are you walking towards your car? So why are you unlocking the door?_ _Are you crazy or just stupid?_

"I'm not crazy," he said.

She blinked. "I never said you were. Thank you, Sam."

He looked down and noticed that he was holding open the door for her. How'd that happen? Reflexes, probably. Yes, of course, that was it. He was an athlete after all, and who could begrudge him for having instincts? No one! That's who! Once she was settled inside he slammed the door, as if in triumph, and stomped to the driver's side. "You're not welcome."

"What?"

"You said, 'thank you,' and I'm saying you're not welcome."

This had sounded better in his head, sort of snide and cold. When he heard himself out loud it seemed to him that his voice had dropped about five octaves, like he was ten years old, and he suddenly remembered a great trauma that had been inflicted upon him around that time. Bill Jenkins from down the block had gotten ahold of some iron pyrite from his uncle, Fool's gold. It sure looked like real gold to Sam, and he'd swapped his Ted Williams rookie card for the lot. By the time he figured out his mistake it was too late, but the insult of losing the card was nothing compared to the terrible awareness that everyone_ knew!_ He'd tried to cover it up: "Well, screw you, Bill, I didn't want that dumb thing anyway. Of course I knew it wasn't real gold, I didn't want real gold, it gets flat when you hammer it. Don't you know anything?" It was a crummy excuse, but the only reason he could think of for not wanting real gold. Bill told him that Fool's gold got flat when you hammered it too, or even just chucked it at something. "It does not, you liar!" No, Bill said, it really does. Like silly putty. You could make a Frisbee out of it. But Sam would not allow himself to be swindled again. Maybe he'd traded his most prized possession for Fool's gold, but that didn't make him a fool! To prove his point he launched the iron pyrite with all his strength into the distance, where it smashed into someone's window, never losing its clunky shape in the process.

His father had not been happy. "A fat lot of money that'll cost. I didn't raise you to be such a damned sore loser." I'm not a sore loser, Dad! I was just proving a point! "Quit sniveling." I'm not sniveling! These are my allergies! Ask the doctor if you don't believe me! But no one had believed him. No one had believed him because he was lying. "Poor baby," his mother had said. "That boy tricked him. We'll buy you a new baseball card." I'm not a baby! But oh, Mother, will you really? "We will do nothing of the sort," said his father. And that had been that.

_No_, he thought now, _I am definitely not crazy_. He knew exactly what he was: Sam Malone, eternal dope. He couldn't lie when he needed to lie, just like he couldn't find cabs when he needed to take one. To his great distress, she was smiling at him. He shuddered when she reached out and squeezed his knee.

"Oh, I love you when you're being stubborn."

_Stop saying you love me when you don't!_ This would have been a good thing to say. Maybe, if he wasn't so stupid, he'd have done it – called her bluff instead of letting her call his. But he found he didn't want to. It was bad enough that she'd started going on about _love_ all the time; the last thing he needed was to be dragged into an argument over it. What good would it do? She could say whatever she wanted, he decided, as long as he remembered never to believe any of it. "I'm not being stubborn," he said.

She kept smiling in that sappy way. He forced his eyes back to the road and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, thinking about how he might kill her. If he didn't mind taking them both out, it'd be easy; he could just veer off into a tree or building or something. But that was no good-what a gruesome end for the Corvette! And for the two of them, but more importantly, the Corvette. He could strangle her, but he wasn't sure how fast this would be and didn't know if he'd be able to handle the racket she would inevitably make. He imagined her making a funny kind of squawking sound. What else – drown her? set her on fire? He was disappointed by how unpleasant these scenarios seemed when he drew them up in his mind. Killing her was clearly a good idea, so why wasn't it any fun to think about?

He'd been so immersed in these thoughts that at first he didn't notice she'd started yammering away about something – the musician they were going to see, he gathered after a moment. "…I think you'll really like him, Sam, he's an exceptional flautist."

"What the hell do you have to say it like that for?"

"Say what?"

"Flutist. Flutist! With a 'u'! It's spelled with a 'u', Diane! Flutist!"

"Actually," she said, "very interestingly, both pronunciations are considered acceptable. Of course, 'flautist' is more commonly used in the United Kingdom, but ironically it was the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne who—"

"Flutist!" he wailed.

"Okay," she said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Flutist. Well, anyway, I think you'll be pleasantly surpri—"

"I won't."

"You didn't let me finish. You don't even know what I was going to say."

"Yes, I do. You were gonna say that I'll be _pleasantly surprised_ by your stinking flautist. I mean flutist. Oh, goddamnit!" He slammed on the brakes at a red light. She touched his knee again.

"Sam, be careful."

"I am being careful. Don't touch me while we're driving, do you want to get in a car accident or something? You know what you are? You're crazy! Stop talking to me. I told you not to."

"Oh Sam."

"Oh Sam what?"

She made no response, only flashed that familiar, maddening grin.

He parked a few blocks from the concert hall. As they made their way down the street she took his hand. "Don't," he snapped.

"Don't what?"

"Don't… don't…" The words died in his throat; his efforts seemed, suddenly, to be very futile, and he resigned himself to her, skulking down the block with his shoulders hunched. "Fine," he said.

"Fine what?"

Was _she_ crazy, he wondered, or just trying to drive him crazy? Or both? He had been puzzling over this lately. He had always assumed the former, but recently he had noticed what seemed to be a very conscious intent in her actions – like she was purposely trying to confuse him. And why? Did she get a kick out of it? The other day he'd come up with a crazy theory that he liked; he'd been thinking about her in Europe, how she'd apparently assumed a completely different personality, and imagined that maybe she actually didn't have a _self_ – or rather, that she could change into someone else whenever she decided it suited her. When she got bored with all this – which she inevitably would, eventually – she'd transform into someone different and find a new sap to jump through all her ridiculous hoops. Maybe she'd take on Cliff's personality just for the challenge. She could do it, he was sure; no matter where she went, she'd always know how to make men fall in love with her. God, she made him sick.

"Fine as in, fine, I don't care what you do," he scowled. "Do whatever you want."

"Oh good. I like to do whatever I want." She squeezed his hand tighter. Why? Did she know that he was, at that very moment, wondering if it'd be possible to kill her with only one hand? He had decided not to try it; maybe if she was holding his left hand he could do it with the right one, but as things were it seemed too risky. And since he wasn't going to kill her, he supposed it didn't really matter if she wanted to hold his hand… He'd just told her she could do whatever she wanted, after all, so what did he care?

Something about her response irritated him, but he couldn't pinpoint what. Perhaps it was just that she was generally annoying. He strained his mind, trying to come up with some kind of retort, then remembered that he didn't want to talk to her anyway and pursed his lips. They entered the concert hall in silence; when they reached their seats she finally released his hand and began rifling through the program.

"Perhaps you'd like some historical context?" she said. No, he wouldn't like any historical context. "Jean-Pierre Rampal has had quite an interesting life, he was born in Marseille—"

"Did I ask?"

"No, of course you didn't, you're pretending that you don't love me. I'd say you're doing a _passable_ job of it. I'm not fooled, of course, but I'm much smarter than you. It's very endearing."

"I'm not—I don't love you!"

"Anyway, his father was a _flautist_ as well, and he studied under him at the Conservatoire de—"

"Jesus Christ! Can you shut up for five seconds?"

For a moment she said nothing, only watched him – her eyelids lowered, something mischievous in her expression. Then she turned to the people seated beside them, an older couple dressed sharply in formalwear. "Excuse me," she said to the woman, "but I couldn't help noticing, your pendant is just beautiful."

"Thank you." The woman smiled, glanced to her husband and then back to Diane. "Randall gave it to me for… what was it, dear? Our fifth anniversary?"

The man – Randall – nodded, also smiling. Sam scowled into his program, watching the conversation unfold out of the corner of his eye. What the hell was she doing now? Why'd she have to talk to _everyone?_ For whatever reason, this annoyed him even more than when she'd been jabbering away just to him.

"Have you seen Rampal perform before?" she asked them.

"No," said the woman, "this is our first time."

"Ours too. My fiancé surprised me with the tickets, isn't he sweet?"

Sam looked up sharply from the program, which he hadn't been reading anyway. "I'm not—stop telling people that!" He stared at the old couple, almost pleadingly. "I'm not her fiancé."

She didn't even look at him; she didn't miss a beat. "He's crazy about me."

"The only crazy person here is _you!_"

The couple seemed mildly perplexed. They blinked a few times, then Randall spoke. "It's so nice to see young people in love."

"Isn't it?" his wife agreed. "You can always tell."

God, did anyone listen to a word he said? He sunk into his seat, trying to ignore the gloating way she was grinning at him. He couldn't. "Will you stop that?"

"Stop what?"

"Looking at me!"

"But you said I could do whatever I want."

"Well, I didn't mean… I changed my mind, okay?"

"Too late."

Well, he should have seen that one coming. Recent events had given him ample evidence that she wouldn't be very accommodating about letting him change his mind. "Can't you think of anything else you want to do, then?"

"I can think of a few things…"

At this he froze, then slowly straightened in his seat. "Oh… oh yeah?" The words left his mouth very much despite his better judgment. "Uh, what kinds of things?"

"Oh, it's not important, I can't do any of them here…and you've already said you're too busy to go anywhere after."

"I bet you could do some of them here."

"No."

"Well, why don't you tell me what they are and we'll figure out if you can—"

"Shush, Sam, it's starting."

Indeed, the lights had dimmed. He slumped back into the seat, feeling still more defeated, and swore to himself he wouldn't talk to her again for the rest of the evening. When Rampal took the stage he clapped feebly, watching with half-lidded eyes.

He decided he would fall asleep. This was the best revenge he could concoct, even if it wasn't perfect, but quickly he found himself too on edge. Damn! All those times he'd fallen asleep on accident, despite his best efforts not to, and now when he wanted it he was wide awake. Of course. He sighed and fixed his gaze on the flutist, a squat, balding man with a broad face. He cocked his head. Where had he seen this guy before? Something about him seemed strangely familiar…

The music wasn't so bad. It wasn't Aerosmith or anything, but it had a playful, lilting cadence and could at least hold some of his attention. It occurred to him that he'd never watched anyone play the flute before, at least not without any accompaniment; it sounded to him a little like a bird. Why, he wondered, did she like this? Why did anyone like anything? When he got to the bottom of it he knew that, however much he protested, he thought all music was pretty nice. He thought most things were pretty nice. So why choose one thing over another? This was something that stumped him – where passion came from, why he and everyone else shared that same instinct to make _allegiances_. They could have all the music if they wanted, but instead they picked sides. He loved baseball, and yet it made his skin crawl to see the Yankees beat the Sox. Why? It was still baseball. He loved women. He had always loved women, maybe more than anything else – and so why _choose_ one when, by remaining passive, he could have half the world?

Well, because they weren't really _his_ – those two and a half billion pairs of legs carrying two and a half billion girls up and down streets around the globe. They passed him by, and he them; at the end of the day they didn't have much to do with each other at all. When he took one it was just for half a second, and then they were gone. In a way he thought he'd loved every one of them, if only for that half second; and he wondered if maybe love for someone had as much to do with you as them. To love someone was to use them as a vessel for yourself – to give yourself away. It made you lighter. So maybe that was why people wanted so badly to choose, but at the same time it struck him as risky. Love, he knew, could fizzle out, and then the heaviness would return. If he let too much time elapse, he might forget how to carry all that weight. And as for _her_…

Jean-Pierre Rampal was smart, he thought, for choosing to pour himself into a flute. Where could a flute go? He just didn't trust her. If he gave her something, how was he to know that she wouldn't just give it back, and – suddenly unburdened – float away out the window? And where would he be then? It was better to have no one – to carry the weight yourself, let someone take it from your shoulders every few nights as a kind of reprieve, and then keep on moving.

He suddenly felt something drop against his shoulder and almost gave a start. Blonde hair tickled his neck. When he glanced her face he didn't know whether to laugh or scowl – was she making some kind of joke? Did she think this was funny? No, he decided, she wasn't thinking anything.

She was just asleep.

Reflexively he wrapped an arm around her, his fingers tracing along her neck. _It would be so easy to kill her right now_, he thought. Once, back in grade school, Derek had told him about a spot on everyone's neck where, if pressure is exerted correctly, death is instantaneous. Why did he always think about these things when he was with her - was it because she made him feel like a lousy helpless ten-year-old kid? It was no use anyway, because he'd never been able to find where the spot was. He'd blown a whole Saturday in the library looking through the martial arts books for it too, but with no luck, and when he finally built up the courage to ask the librarian she'd cast him a baleful look, as if he'd said something positively filthy. "Why does a nice boy like you need to know something so terrible?" In the moment he'd mumbled something stupid about self defense. Now, he'd have a real answer: "To murder my fiancee, Mrs. Fletcher." _No!_ he corrected inwardly. _She's not your fiancee! She's just your girlfriend! Wait - no she isn't!_

Well, he considered, no matter what she was, it was doubtful that Mrs. Fletcher would tell him how to kill her. Should he kill himself instead? Would that get him out of this? No, that wouldn't work. She'd probably find a way to write his obituary: "Sam is survived by his parents, his brother, and his beloved fiancee. Don't believe the rumors. She is definitely his fiancee." Oh, that bitch, only she would have the audacity to circulate such lies around the Boston metropolitan area, Massachusetts, the world, while he lay festering in the grave! He could kill her! Well, no, he obviously couldn't, or he would have done so already. Now back where he'd begun, having exhausted these possibilities, he sat in silence, his eyes flickering between her and the stage as Rampal finished his set.

Not until intermission did she stir, when the applause roused her. "Hullo," he said coldly. "Didja have a nice nap?"

She gave a little twitch, coming back to herself. "Yes," she said. "Thank you for asking."

_Yes, thank you for asking_? He really should've killed her when he had the chance. All those times he'd fallen asleep and she'd made him feel like dirt – like less than dirt, like pond scum, like mold! – for being so _insensitive_, and all she had to say now was "Yes, thank you for asking"? He rose stiffly and started for the lobby.

"Sam." She took his arm again as they approached the bar. "I was going to order a glass of red wine, would you like me to get you anything while I'm over there?"

"Red wine, huh, is that supposed to help with your beauty sleep?"

"Oh, you goose. I'll get you a Perrier."

"I didn't ask you for one."

"Yes, but I know that's what you want."

"You still shouldn't do it unless I ask!"

She watched him crookedly, as if he were being impossibly stupid, the faintest trace of a smile across her lips. "But that's silly, Sam, you didn't need to ask. I already knew."

"Yeah, but that's not the poi—"

She vanished into the crowd before he could finish and so he cut himself off, crumpling onto a bar stool. Oh hell. He did want a Perrier, anyway. When she returned she seated herself beside him and he took the bottle from her hands without looking up. "Hey," he mumbled. "Did you know that guy was on the Muppets?"

Not until he spoke did he realize that this was why he recognized Rampal. He felt pleased by his observation, hoping it would annoy her, but to his disappointment she laughed softly.

"Yes, I know, he performed a duet with Miss Piggy."

"You watched it too?"

"I watched it because I heard he would be a guest… It was actually very clever."

"I watched it 'cos I like Miss Piggy."

"I assumed."

"Yeah, she reminds me of someone, you wanna guess who?"

Again he hoped this might annoy her, and again he was mistaken. She set her wine glass on the bar and leaned forward to straighten his tie. "Does that make you Kermit?"

"_No_, it doesn't make me Kermit."

"Why not? I like frogs. I have a frog."

"Since when do you have a frog?"

"Since always!" She sounded a little exasperated. "Freddy Frog, how can you forget him? He was one of your _victims_."

"Oh yeah. A stuffed frog, you mean." He couldn't stop himself from snorting as he thought back to that night; he'd completely forgotten what he'd done with the stuffed animals until the next morning, and had almost gotten into a panic over it, but then when she found out she wasn't even all that mad. 'Course, she'd made him climb up a stinking tree to retrieve the few that never made it to the street… But for the most part she'd had a surprisingly good sense of humor about it. His _victims_, she called them, as if he was some kind of stuffed animal terrorist. Well, he supposed he was.

She leaned still closer, absently playing with the fabric of his tie. "And now I have two frogs."

"No, you don't. Stop touching me." She didn't. "I don't want to be a frog."

"Too bad."

"I especially don't want to be _your_ frog."

"Well, you already are."

God, she was too close. If she didn't get away soon he was going to do something stupid, kill her or kiss her or some combination of the two. Whatever he did, it would end with trouble. "Will you stop?" he pleaded.

"Stop what?"

_Making me love you_, he thought ruefully. "I don't know. Everything."

"Stop everything? That's a lot to stop. Can you narrow it down?"

"No."

"Aw, someone's cranky."

He looked at her; the way the light filtered in through the windows made it seem almost as if she was glowing. _God_, he thought, _I've done it again_. Traded for Fool's gold. Brass-yellow, shimmering in the midday sun, it had looked so real to him. And what came of it? Nothing. Was there anything, _anything_, he could do to save himself? No, he knew what he was: an eternal dope. Also, apparently, a frog. One day soon he'd hop into an open grave, close on the tail of whatever shone. Oh, hell. There were probably worse ways to go.


End file.
